The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), alongside federal partners including the White House Council on Environmental Quality, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, and Bureau of Reclamation released a draft of the National Water Reuse Action Plan during the Tuesday plenary luncheon at the 34th Annual WateReuse Symposium. The announcement began with a keynote presentation by Dave Ross, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water. Ross then joined the following federal officials for a roundtable discussion:
null- Moderator: Aubrey
Bettencourt, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, Department
of the Interior
- Mary Neumayr,
Chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality
- Ryan Fisher,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Army Corps of
Engineers
- Timothy Petty,
Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of the Interior
- Brenda Burman,
Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior
- Daniel Simmons, Assistant Secretary Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
The draft Water Reuse Action Plan
outlines a set of proposed actions aimed at supporting and advancing water
reuse across the country. These include actions that can be led by federal
government agencies, as well as actions that can be led by industry experts,
the private sector, and the research community.
During the past eight months, the WateReuse Association engaged our membership and the broader stakeholder community to generate ideas for the national action plan. This included facilitating a multi-month collaboration to develop recommendations jointly with the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, American Water Works Association, Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, Water Environment Federation, and Water Research Foundation. We are pleased to see many of those recommendations reflected in the draft action plan.
The draft plan will be open for public feedback for 90 days following its publication to the Federal Register, during which EPA will solicit comments on how to prioritize and implement the proposed actions. In the coming months, the WateReuse Association will work with EPA, other federal agencies, and our members and partners to flesh out the Action Plan, with a focus on developing implementation details for priority actions.